JOHN LEE'S FARM. 47 



about six miles. Excellent supper on wildebeest 

 steak, fried. 



" September 6th. — Dark cloudy morning, with a 

 little rain. Started at 7 a.m., and trekked six miles. 

 The country where we stopped had been much 

 burnt, and looked very desolate, with bare ground 

 and bare trees, but there was a fine cool wind and 

 a cloudy sky. I could fancy it a sea-breeze. They 

 say at the king's place you get the sea-breeze. 

 Started again at 12.30 p.m. Here one enters on a 

 bit of really fine rugged country. Out of the level, 

 scantily covered with dry brown grass and with a 

 thick growth of leafless trees (small for the most 

 part), rise huge boulders, so piled on one another, 

 with here and there a huge stone so nicely balanced 

 on the top, that one wonders how they ever got 

 there. We are in a populous country, strings of 

 people carrying things on the road. Outspanned 

 at 2.30 p.m. Here the Dutchman, Smit, had 

 been located, as there is a straw house, and water, 

 the road crossing a spruit. Here, too, is John Lee's 

 first kraal. People come round the waggon to beg 

 meat. One is a warrior, handsomely adorned with 

 black ostrich-feathers and white ox-tails. Went on 

 again at 5 p.m., the ground rising a little. Then as 

 we descend a range of kopjes appears in front. In 

 about an hour a pretty white farm is seen to the 

 right, towards which the road winds, and the wild 

 view makes the farm seem to welcome one. 



" Lee came to meet me and asked me in. He 

 is a fat, red-faced man ; his wife very young. His 



